Organizers of the Gaza Freedom March in Cairo Thursday. These people look like they’re really committed, engaged, and elated. I don’t see similar scenes in Sderot.

Take a deep breath when you reach the full stop at the end of this sentence. Now exhale. Again: deep inhale, feel the cool air as it moves through your nostrils, see your abdomen and chest expand; now exhale slowly through your nose, the same air coming back out warm, feel your face relax. Last time, and now don’t read on, just breathe. And smile. Plug your ears with your fingers and listen to yourself breathe.

Nicely done. Feeling better? Just three deep breaths, a smile, some positiveness, that’s all it takes to give yourself a mini holiday, reduce your stress, rest your mind and add tremendous quality to your life. Remember to give yourself this mini break as often as you can throughout your day, every day. And once in a while, take a long, relaxing holiday somewhere nice, like maybe an island in Thailand. Continue reading →

Substitute “Enemy Command HQ” for “Hubs of Delegitimacy.” Instead of “enemy armor outflanking our infantry,” use “resistance networks outflanking the IDF to attack Israel’s very legitimacy.” Instead of bombing Israeli embassies – picketing Israeli stores and taking Israeli products off supermarket shelves.

Pair Iran’s nuclear program, an existential threat to Israel, with the simultaneous creation of an existential political threat, and you are talking in a new type of language, and a new type of warfare in which the IDF is not equipped to engage in, and perhaps shouldn’t be engaging in.

A new report by the Reut Institute, a Tel Aviv-based national security and socioeconomic policy think tank, maps out the “new battlefield” in which Israel finds the legitimacy of its very existence attacked by a wide array of organizations and individuals in global centers like London, Toronto, Brussels, Madrid and Berkley. Continue reading →

It unfolded like something out of a Mario Puzo novel: The powerful don of a mob family holds months of clandestine talks with the disgruntled henchmen of a rival clan and gets them to betray their boss, abandon their family and leave it exposed and vulnerable, fated for cruel elimination. Continue reading →

SIMILAN ISLANDS NATIONAL PARK, THAILAND – Instead of a Blackberry – I touched barracudas. Instead of cable TV – I gawked at a leopard shark. Instead of monitoring breaking news on the hour every hour – scuba diving four times a day; diving and eating, eating and diving. Instead of politicians and publicity hounds – giant Manta Rays posing for our cameras and plenty of sea turtles performing for our amusement. Instead of sitting in gridlock traffic twice a day – I lived on a boat amidst vast expanses of open sea, swam in indigo blue water, and watched sunsets that took my breath away. And instead of staring at a laptop all day, I strapped a dive computer to my wrist and headed out for the Andaman Sea off Thailand’s southern coast to explore their underwater beauty. As November ticked over into December, I switched my daily routine in the city for five days of boat life in the Similan Islands, a chain of nine islands off Phang Nga Province covered by tropical jungle that together make up a nature reserve, and can be reached by a short speedboat ride from Phuket or Khao Lak. Living onboard the MV Koon – a boat catering to dive customers that jaunts from island to island – I discovered another world, not just the one under the sea, but one away from civilization, away from hordes of tourists, a world of adventure, wonder and stillness. Considered one of the best diving spots in the world, the Similans are closed to tourists during the rainy season from June to November. But from mid-November until May, when the weather is balmy, the sea calm, and visibility excellent, the islands burst alive with hundreds of divers exploring their rich underwater ecosystem. Continue reading →

Fifteen years from now America is still globally preeminent, yet its relative power is in decline. The US faces multiple threats from state and non-state actors, some of which have superseded their nation states and could be in possession of weapons of mass destruction.

Mega-cities forge their own policies and partnerships.

Complex threats transcend geographic borders and organizational boundaries, and small local skirmishes quickly escalate into worldwide shooting wars. Asia and the Middle East are awash with WMD; space, the Arctic and cyberspace become increasingly militarized. Governments around the world take a zero-sum attitude to international affairs and retreat from free trade agreements, while simmering competition between nations results in a growing wave of nationalism, reviving historic tensions.

This is the bleak picture painted by the US Quadrennial Intelligence Community Review (QICR) 2009, a scenario-based strategic planning activity that looks out to the year 2025 and considers alternative futures or “scenarios,” missions the intelligence community might be called on to perform, and the operating principles and capabilities required to fulfill those missions. Continue reading →